by George Baxt
THE
MARLENE DIETRICH
MURDER
CASE
BY
GEORGE BAXT
ST MARTIN’S PRESS
NEW YORK
THE MARLENE DIETRICH MURDER CASE
Copyright © 1993 by George Baxt.
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
Design by Basha Zapatka
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Baxt, George.
The Marlene Dietrich murder case / George Baxt.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-312-09334-9
1. Dietrich, Marlene—Fiction. 2. Women detectives—California—Los Angeles—Fiction. 3. Hollywood (Los Angeles, Calif.)— Fiction. I. Title.
PS3552. A8478M 37 1993
93-21737
CIP
First edition: May 1993
for
Robert Fletcher
and
Jack Kauflin
we remember the same things
ONE
MARLENE DIETRICH’S KITCHEN in her rented Beverly Hills mansion was a masterpiece of modern design. It was the kitchen that cemented her decision to rent the house. She had left Germany for the United States a month earlier and arrived in New York on April 9, 1930. After a whirlwind week of newspaper interviews, newsreel interviews, radio interviews, and being wined and dined by Adolph Zukor, who ruled Paramount Pictures (Marlene’s new employers), with an iron fist, she had settled with a sigh of exhaustion and a sigh of relief into her first-class compartment on the Twentieth Century Limited.
A Hollywood star. The fantasy a reality. The dream come true. The script of her first American film, Morocco, on the seat next to her. Co-starring with Gary Cooper and Adolphe Menjou. Gary Cooper. How she longed to sleep with Gary Cooper. Rudy wouldn’t mind. Her husband, Rudolf Sieber wouldn’t mind at all. He was content living with his mistress, Tamara Matul. Marlene was glad he was content. She was glad he had Tamara to love and amuse him. Marlene and Rudy had married six years earlier, and a year later she gave birth to her adored daughter, Heidede, more frequently called Maria.
This magnificent kitchen. For five days after arriving in Hollywood, accompanied by a Paramount representative, she had hunted for an appropriate house. Josef von Sternberg cautioned her, “Don’t rent too expensive a place. Don’t sign a long lease. If Morocco fails and you fail with it, they’ll send you back to Germany.”
Fat chance, she said to herself. She was a European smash in von Sternberg’s The Blue Angel. She could act, she could sing in a voice husky with the seductiveness of the sirens of the Rhine. She projected a subtle eroticism and an exotic sexiness that appealed to both men and women. Fail? Me? Marlene? Lucie Mannheim and Brigitte Helm were two of Germany’s biggest stars, but they lost Lola-Lola in The Blue Angel to me. Von Sternberg favored me over them, even though I was too heavy and needed to lose twenty pounds. But the way I looked at him at our first meeting, the look that promised everything but didn’t deliver anything until I had a signed contract. Fail? Me? Morocco was a smash hit, a sensation. Dressed in a tuxedo in a nightclub in North Africa, I dared wrap my hands around a woman’s face and kiss her full on the lips. I could hear the rest of the company on the soundstage gasp. Those sharp intakes of breath. The dark look on von Sternberg’s face as he lit a cigarette. And my audacious query, “Didn’t you like it? Shall I do it again? I can make it more suggestive.” He kept the scene in the film. He knew it would give Marlene her much sought after celebrity, and it did.
And then The Blue Angel was rushed into American release and Frederick Hollander’s “Falling in Love Again,” which she sang with a contemptuous cynicism that would become her trademark, became her signature. And now she had her magnificent kitchen. What the world did not yet know was that this glamorous mother preferred to cook and bake and concoct exquisite soups, stirring the pot with the enthusiasm of one of the three witches in Macbeth. Marlene reigned in the kitchen, and today, so did chaos.
“I smell something burning,” said Anna May Wong, who was noshing on a plate of pickled herring.
Marlene hurried to one of her four stoves while brandishing a pot holder. She moved a pan of codfish balls from the flame and stirred the contents with a large spoon.
“They’re fine, they’ll be okay,” she said with a small smile. There were five other cooks in the kitchen and all exchanged knowing glances. Had one of them come close to burning something, he or she would have been banished into culinary exile. Tonight was Marlene’s big night. Over one hundred people invited to join her in welcoming the New Year, 1932. Nineteen thirty-one had been a glorious year. Morocco, The Blue Angel, and Dishonored, in which she again scored as a German spy based on the exploits of the notorious, albeit somewhat dumpy, Mata Hari. And now, with von Sternberg directing her for the fourth time in succession, she had completed her most erotic and suggestive film to date, Shanghai Express, in which she and Anna May Wong were a pair of extraordinarily unusual prostitutes who murder a Chinese warlord.
Anna May said, “Why don’t you let these professionals do the cooking,” gesturing to the five cooks, who awaited an explosion from Dietrich.
Marlene abandoned the codfish balls and pushed an errant strand of hair back into place. “Who said they’re not cooking? There’s plenty for them to do.” She faced them with hands on hips. “Don’t you have plenty to do?” The five busied themselves while Marlene continued, striving hard to overcome her tendency to supplant r’s with w’s. “Now really! All I’m cooking are my specialties. I am famous for my specialties.” Anna May nodded in silent agreement. “Everybody in Hollywood looks forward to my specialties.” And again Anna May nodded in tacit agreement. Specialties were indeed Dietrich’s specialty. “Those codfish balls are a Scandinavian delicacy. A recipe handed down from the Vikings.”
Anna May stuffed a cigarette into a holder decorated with jade chips. “I didn’t know the Vikings were famous for their cuisine. I thought all they did was pillage and rape women.”
“In between they ate,” said Marlene with her usual logic. She pulled a chair to Anna May’s side and sat. “Why don’t you finish the herring?” Marlene chewed on a radish. Anna May blew a smoke ring. “What’s bothering you?”
“Not working is what’s bothering me. How many parts are there for Chinese women? And when there is one, it’s played by Myrna Loy, who is from Helena, Montana, which is hardly a Chinese province.
“Nineteen thirty-two will be better. Mercury is leaving retrograde and the New Moon will bring a series of offers for you to work. Jupiter will be entering your house.”
“He doesn’t have a key. I’m thinking of going back to Europe. I was doing great in films and the theater until Paramount sent for me for Daughter of the Dragon.” She added morosely, “That and Shanghai Express is all I’ve done in almost two years, besides redecorating my apartment house.”
“Don’t you own that apartment house?”
“Yes, but it’s not a very big one.”
“It’s not the size that counts.”
“All the apartments are occupied by friends and relatives, so I can’t charge too much rent.”
“Why not? Don’t be victimized by parasites! Anyway, Carroll Richter predicts a wonderful 1932.” Carroll Richter was making a fortune as astrologer to the stars and much of that fort
une came from Dietrich. “You mark his words. Next year your ship will come in.”
“I’m beginning to think my ship did come in but forgot to unload its cargo.”
“What you really need is a love affair.”
“That’s all you seem to think about.”
“It’s such pleasant thinking. Now I shall prepare my Bavarian meatballs a la Schumann-Heink. I got the recipe from the great soprano. I’ve improved on it. I use chopped sirloin, not cheap chuck.” A thought struck her. ‘‘Anna May, last April, when I came back from Germany with Rudolf and little Maria, we met this French actor on the train.”
“I think you told me about him.”
“Maybe I did. His name is Raymond Souvir.”
“That doesn’t sound familiar.”
“Very handsome. Very charming. He must be very rich, I think. He lives very lavishly. He’s coming to the party.”
“And you plan to introduce us.”
“Of course I do, but I have no ulterior motive, I assure you.” She was quartering a sirloin steak and then subdividing the quartered sections. “He travels with a very select group, all European for the most part except for Dorothy di Frasso.”
“I should have guessed the Countess di Frasso would have gotten her claws into him.”
“Oh, Dorothy’s not so bad. She’s just pushy. Just a clever American girl who managed to marry into Italian nobility and walk off with a lot of her husband’s wealth after she divorced him.”
“She still doing it with Gary Cooper?”
Marlene shrugged. “It’s too exhausting trying to guess who Gary’s doing it to these days. Di Frasso or Lupe Velez, or this society girl he’s been squiring, Sandra something.” She was dropping chunks of sirloin into a grinder and pulverizing them. She resembled a cameraman the way she diligently ground away, and Anna May marveled at the contented expression on Marlene’s face. Here was a true Hausfrau, if only she weren’t so eaten up by ambition. “Anyway, Raymond is bringing a Chinese musician, a violinist. Now let me see, his name is Ding Dong something.”
“Dong See,” corrected Anna May.
“You know him?”
“Marlene,” Anna May underlined her name with exaggerated patience, “Dong See is internationally famous.”
“Well I never heard of him.”
“I can’t understand how come! He’s appeared to great acclaim in all the capitals of the world.”
“If he played in Berlin, then it had to be after I left. Anyway, he’ll be here tonight; maybe you’ll like each other.”
“You mean because we’re both Chinese?”
“Oh, for crying out loud, Anna May, from the time we met and became friends, I haven’t been able to fathom your taste in anybody. You think Clive Brook is a bore.”
“He is. Don’t you agree? Those few love scenes you did with him in Shanghai Express, I expected icicles to form on your lips.”
“You’re right. He’s a cold fish. But very charming. And what about Herbert Marshall? I saw him flirt with you at Ronald Colman’s party. Does the fact that he only has one leg put you off?”
“Not at all. I think he’d be nice to have around if I needed to touch wood.”
“What are you looking for in a man?” asked Dietrich with exasperation.
“I’m not looking for a man!”
“Then what are you looking for?”
“A job!”
Police Inspector Herbert Villon sat at his desk flipping through the pages of Picture Play magazine. Seated in a chair opposite him, Hazel Dickson, who enjoyed the dubious profession of selling gossip to newspapers, magazines, and their columnists, attacked a fingernail with an emery board. She heard Villon saying, “Oooh, what I’d like to do to Helen Twelvetrees.”
“That’s one of the things I like about you, Herb. You know, like the way you suck your teeth and clean your nails with toothpicks. I’m the lady who’s generous with her favors, in return for which I get the occasional dinner, a couple of drinks, an invitation to the Policeman’s Ball, and ‘Ooooh, what I’d like to do to Helen Twelvetrees or Barbara Stanwyck or Ginger Rogers or Ruth Chatterton…”
“Not Ruth Chatterton,” said Villon, now ogling a photograph of Sally Eilers, “too old.”
“I wish Chatterton could hear you say that so I could hear her sigh of relief. Will you put that damn magazine down and answer the question?”
“What question?”
“The one I asked you before you zeroed in on Twelvetrees. Are you wearing a tuxedo tonight?”
“Why?”
“What do you mean ‘Why’? I’m taking you to Dietrich’s big bash tonight. It’s the most sought after invitation in town! Two dozen parties were canceled when Marlene announced she was giving hers.”
Villon lowered the magazine. “You’re chummy enough to call her Marlene?”
Hazel moved on to another nail, another enemy she assailed with vigor. “The last time I interviewed her she cooked me a Wiener schnitzel.”
“Do tell.”
“Don’t be so snotty.”
“I’m not being snotty. I’m being impressed. I’m even jealous. I’d like Marlene to cook something special for me too.”
“Wear your tuxedo and make a good impression tonight and maybe she will.”
“Do you think Helen Twelvetrees will be there?”
“How do I know?”
“Did Dietrich really invite you or are we crashing as usual?”
“Personal invitation by phone.” She shifted in her chair. “She likes me. I don’t peddle gossip about her.”
“And how come you don’t?”
“Because I genuinely like her. She’s a great gal. With her, all that glamour stuff is a put-on. She thinks it’s a big nothing. The only thing she likes about it is the money. She pulls down a hundred and fifty thousand a picture; where does that hit you?”
“If she wasn’t already married I’d propose. And what about him living in Switzerland with a mistress?”
“It don’t bother Dietrich, it don’t bother me. Let me put it to you this way. I know plenty of dirt about her. Plenty of real dirt. But I ain’t selling it to nobody. Let the others trade in on her. I value her liking me. She got me in good with Claudette Colbert where before Claudette would never talk to me, only to Florabel Muir of the Daily News Syndicate.”
“So now it’s Claudette.”
“Well, you don’t expect me to call her Shirley, do you?” She placed the emery board into her handbag, placed the handbag on his desk, folded her arms, which meant she meant business, fixed him with a firm look, and asked, “What about the tuxedo?”
“I’m a cop, honey. Cops don’t wear tuxedos.”
“What do they wear besides a sneer on their lips or a coffin?”
Villon lowered the magazine. He favored her with a sweet smile. “Hazel, why’d I ever get mixed up with you?”
“I’m not sure, Herb. I thought it was my mother you were after.”
“She’s got great gams for an old broad.”
“The tuxedo. Herb. I blew a month’s salary on a Coco Chanel.”
“Maybe after the party you can hock it.”
“Go to hell.”
“I can’t. We’re going to Dietrich’s party. And stop looking daggers at me. I’m wearing the tuxedo, okay?” She favored him with a look of contentment. “What real dirt you got on Marlene?”
“That’s for me to know and you to never find out.”
“What about her astrologer, Carroll Richter?”
“What about him?”
“He must have plenty on her.”
“What makes you think that?”
“His crystal balls!”
* * *
In Marlene’s kitchen, where she was now preparing several baking pans of apple strudel, Anna May was sipping a cup of tea and marveling at Dietrich’s industry. It was a warm day outside and the kitchen was overheated. One of the butlers had opened all the windows and another had set up floor fans, which gave some re
lief to everyone working in the rooms. But the ovens were ablaze and would stay ablaze to keep the food warm through the party. Marlene was telling Anna May how an astrologer in Berlin, an Egyptian, had predicted she would have to cross a vast expanse of water before achieving true fame and fortune. And here she was.
“It’s amazing.”
“His prediction?”
“The way you believe in astrology.”
“Don’t you? The Chinese and the Egyptians were the first great practitioners of astrology.”
“My grandfather was an astrologer, as a matter of fact. And he was pretty damn good at it. When Doug Fairbanks was looking for a girl to play the treacherous Chinese maid in his Thief of Bagdad, I was dying for a chance to audition but I thought he’d think I was too young. I was only fourteen. But my grandfather had my chart done for me and he said, ‘You will play that part.’ And I did.”
“There, you see?” She shouted to no one in particular, “I need more white raisins!” and very quickly they materialized on the table where she was working. Anna May was deep in thought. Marlene caught her look and offered her a penny for her thoughts.
Anna May said, “My very good friend Mai Mai Chu. She’s the astrologer who did my chart. Shall I ask her to the party? She’s very very good. All the bankers and investment brokers swear by her. She predicted the ’29 market crash.”
“Oh yes?”
“My mother and her mother were great friends. Mai Mai lived in Paris for a decade or more. She knew the literary set. Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Sylvia Beach, all that gang. My mother suspected she might have been a spy for the Allies during the war.”
“I wish I’d known that. She could have given me some tips for my part in Dishonored.”
“She’s been asked to work with Garbo.”
“On what? Greta’s doing a spy movie?”
“Don’t you read the trades? She’s doing Mata Hari.” Dietrich smiled and winked. “I got there first.”
Anna May was crossing the kitchen to a wall phone. “I’m going to call Mai Mai now. If she’s free, I’m sure she’ll agree to come.”
Mai Mai Chu was a petite woman of an unguessable age and delicately pretty features who lived in an elegantly furnished loft apartment on the perimeter of Chinatown. She was lighting incense in a little glass tumbler before a statue of Buddha. As smoke started curling out from the incense, Mai Mai said to Buddha, “Anna May Wong is phoning me.” The phone rang. Mai Mai smiled. She said into the mouthpiece, “Hello, Anna May. So nice to hear from you.”